I ran into an old friend at the mall who happened to have had a very terrible experience with a scammer that almost rendered him bankrupt during the Covid-19 lockdown.
Mr James ( not real name ), while searching for a way to earn additional income to support and take care of his family, he met an innocent-looking Nurse on LinkedIn.
Little did he know that he was interacting with an evil-hearted scammer who stole the identity of a hard-working Nurse online.
He said; during the course of their interaction, they became friends.
The scammer sensing that he had become vulnerable, then introduced a BTC investment scheme and sent him the URL of the acclaimed investment site where she invested money that net her a 60% Return on Investment monthly.
Though he had some apprehensions, the website he was directed to looked legitimate, and the potential returns were too good to turn down.
As a trained Marketing Executive with a piece of average investment knowledge, he knows that such a return on Investment is not obtainable.
Even the best trading robot will not deliver that ROI, yet he ignored these obvious red flags because he presumed that the so-called good nurse from the UK is genuine and won’t lie to him.
But he was wrong to believe and trust someone he met online without fact-checking her identity.
The deed has been done and, there’s no way to recover the stolen funds.
Nevertheless, it is a moral obligation on my path to share vital ideas on how I usually unmask scammers, especially those that send me unsolicited messages on Telegram, Instagram and LinkedIn.
And get the fake social media accounts they are using to defraud people busted.
The idea is simple.
When you receive an unsolicited message from someone you don’t know on social media, before engaging him to the extent of building an emotional connection with the individual, you need to run an identity check on the person.
This is the first thing you need to do; unmask the identity behind the profile.
Scammers have a way to devise new means to steal from people. The current trick is to steal identities by downloading people’s pictures from their social media pages.
To unmask the identity download, or screenshot the profile picture the person is using.
When you download it, next thing is to search for this keyword on Google: “Google Reverse Image”.
When you search it, many sites that offer Google Reverse Image will appear in the search results.
You can use any of the sites.
Well, I prefer this site it is the one I use often: https://tineye.com
When the site opens upload the picture on the site.
It will give you digital footprints of the picture.
From the search results of the digital footprints, you will get to know the actual personality.
Most often, you will discover that the pictures have been reported to scam-busting websites.
You will also discover the date and the platform where the picture was first uploaded.
If you run this check and, discover that it’s a stolen identity, what you need to do is to report the account and block it.
Identity check is the first thing you need to do whenever anyone you don’t know contacts you online — make this a part of your online habit.
Because busting online scams start with you.
Share this information on your social media to help fight scams.
Meanwhile, if you would like to learn more about cryptocurrency and investment, at Mrchino Club Academy, we offer Advance Masterclass on crypto investment and trading.
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